


Haunted Bliss

by persephoneregina



Series: The Haunted Saga [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baby Mingi, Blood, Death and Rebirth, Eventual Smut, Fairy Hwanwoong, Happy Ending, Homoeroticism, Injury, M/M, Magic, Major Character Injury, Resurrection, Romance, Slow Burn, Softness, Star-crossed, Sunmi - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, fairytale, hints of violence, human Mingi, soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephoneregina/pseuds/persephoneregina
Summary: There are creatures, in the woods.There are creatures, murmuring, watching, crawling.There are creatures and they live in the shadows casted by trees, in their hollow trunks, in the abandoned dens of foxes and badgers and squirrels.They prey on fear and despair and loneliness, they feed themselves over the misery in the last tears of their victims, unendingly thirsting for more humans to lure into their wicked paths, on which humans walk only to meet their fate.Such are the tales with which Mingi has been brought up.This is what he has been taught to believe, and yet, unlike the other kids in his village, these stories only make him want to go and explore the enchanted woods more.
Relationships: Song Mingi/Yeo Hwanwoong
Series: The Haunted Saga [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662715
Comments: 20
Kudos: 68





	1. 1.

# Haunted Bliss

There are creatures, in the woods.

There are creatures, murmuring, watching, crawling.

There are creatures and they live in the shadows casted by trees, in their hollow trunks, in the abandoned dens of foxes and badgers and squirrels.

They prey on fear and despair and loneliness, they feed themselves over the misery in the last tears of their victims, unendingly thirsting for more humans to lure into their wicked paths, on which humans walk only to meet their fate.

Such are the tales with which Mingi has been brought up.

This is what he has been taught to believe, and yet, unlike the other kids in his village, these stories only make him want to go and explore the enchanted woods more.

Fear has never been a feeling he is familiar with.

Curiosity, on the other hand, has always been by his side like an uncontrollable power behind his every move and thought.

Hence, it doesn’t take too long until the fables that his grandmama tells him before sleeping bring out his most playfully and curious side. Every night, young Mingi goes to sleep and dreams about the mystery of the woods surrounding his hometown, seeing himself running free on the fresh, dewy grass, and bursting in loud laughs at every swarm of butterflies flying around him.

The seasons keep passing by, and when Mingi turns eight years old, he just can’t resist anymore.

He would want to leave that very morning for his small adventures, but he is forced to attend the little party his parents so very carefully organized for him. The whole house smells like vanilla and strawberries because of his mother being busy baking and garnishing his cake, wearing her best smile and humming a tune, sometimes even singing, mostly when she thinks she’s not being heard. Mingi is in a bad mood, still. Like most children, he very seldom enjoys being kept away from what he truly wishes to be doing, and he just doesn’t seem to be able to be happy about the party, which makes it even worse because there is a slight hint of guilt in all of that. He can’t properly explain it: he should be euphoric and yet there he is, on his ninth birthday, unable to chime in the joyful atmosphere haloing among his family.

The sense of discomfort doesn’t cut him any slack that day: he’s barely able to touch any food and keeps torturing a piece of his birthday cake with the light blue plastic fork he’s holding in his hand, visibly pouting and with furrowed eyebrows.

“Mingi, love, what is wrong with you today?” His mom asks, sitting next to him as soon as his relatives walk out to get some fresh air and enjoy the warm summer afternoon in the small garden of their house.

Mingi doesn’t answer, he keeps pouting and staring at the floor, frustrated.

“You’ve been sulky all day. Care to share with your silly, old eomma what’s been troubling you?” She gently boops his nose, and finally Mingi looks at her.

She’s obviously not old, neither silly. She’s the sweetest person he knows, and it makes him feel even more guilty about himself for being so selfish and not appreciating all of her efforts. Mingi blushes, ashamed, and his eyes glisten as he gets more and more emotional.

“It’s… Nothing really, it’s just that I was wondering if I could go out and play for a while. I’m bored.” Mingi lies and yet delivers his words with the most innocent face.

“Then go out and play! It’s your day, honey, you should spend it doing what you love to do.” His mother squeezes his cheeks in her hand and places a warm peck on each of them, letting go of him a few seconds later with a warm smile.

“Have fun, angel!” She says, as the ecstatic little boy runs off.

And Mingi runs and runs and runs, until his tummy aches a bit and he’s out of breath, so he plops on the grass, in the midst of daisies and marigolds, losing the sense of time for a while, deeply focused on a ladybug climbing on his fingers. But after a few seconds he cups his hands and gently blows to let it fly, and while the ladybug goes on her own way, Mingi runs into the forest standing right in front of him.

He’s anything but scared: in fact, he is in complete awe, with his eyes wide opened contemplating the tree canopy, the complexity of their branches’ interlocking, the considerable height of their trunks, while his ears get filled with the birds’ chirping and the distant sound of a river running.

“Woah! It’s not scary! It’s not scary at all! Halmeoni lied to me, there’s no ugly spirits here!” Mingi says, overwhelmed by the pure beauty of nature, his heart bursting with joy.

Little does he know that, from the treetops, a dark cloud of creatures is lurking, watching this strange human puppy walk into their realm completely unaware of what it really consists of. They grin, with teeth of crimson red and eyes glowing with hunger, waiting for the slightest hint of fear. That’s all it takes, it’s a matter of seconds: a slight trip, a sudden screech, a twig’s snapping… He’s very young, they think, it won’t be too long before something will terrify him. All they need is for him to release that delightful smell of horror… After that, they’ll do the job.

The creatures quickly get tired of being after him, disgusted by the nauseously cute scenario.

He’ll get scared, sooner or later.

They know for a fact that no one who walks into the woods is ever able to walk out as well.

They know they will get him as well, one way or another, hence they slowly disperse into the woods, overly confident that such a small creature will soon become a wonderful feast of fears.

The completely unaware child, though, seems to be sparking joy from every pore as he happily runs and tumbles on the grass. Mingi is not scared at all, and it doesn’t look like he will be anytime soon: he hops from one sunny spot to the other, chases butterflies, tries to run after a hare, until he ends up on the bank of a small and shallow lake. The light green water glistens as the sunrays kiss its surface, almost blinding Mingi, who needs to brush his eyes with his little hands. As soon as he covers his eyes, though, he feels a cold splash of water hitting his face.

“Hey!” He screams, angrily.

“Well, hello!” A kind voice answers.

Mingi opens up his eyes to see a beautiful young man emerge from the lake, dressed in an iridescent draped robe, with light blonde hair crowning his small, delicate face and the darkest, deepest eyes Mingi has ever seen.

“H-Hello…” Mingi mutters, intimidated.

“What is your name, little one?” The young man asks, kneeling in front of him and smiling as he pats his head.

“My name is Mingi and I am _not_ small!” The boy clenches his fists and attempts to frown, angrily, only ending up with an incredibly endearing expression on his face which leaves his interlocutor amusedly impressed.

“Oh, I am so very sorry if my manners have offended you, Mingi the Great, but you see, it has been quite a while since I last had a guest. My name is Hwanwoong.” He offers his hand to the child, who grabs it and can’t help but squeal a bit at the strange touch of his cold, wet fingers.

The more Mingi looks at Hwanwoong, the more confused he is: there is something definitely weird about him, and yet he can’t really figure out what it is exactly. It might be something about his eyes, dark yet full of life, or about his skin, that has a peculiar opalescent glow, or even about the way he carries himself, so regally and sternly that the child can’t help but feeling intimidated at his presence.

“ _What_ are you, exactly?” Mingi asks, circumspect.

“Hm. Straight to the point, uh? You’re not a subtle one, are you?” Hwanwoong questions in return.

He gives Mingi a gaze that sends chills all over his spine, and not because he is afraid, rather because he’s uncomfortable and slightly cowed by the authoritativeness of Hwanwoong.

“Well, I suppose they don’t teach little humans about us anymore these days. I am a Melusine, darling, a special kind of water fairy, if you will.”

“A fairy?” Mingi echoes, his mouth wide open in amazement.

“Yes, darling, a fairy. Why so surprised?” Hwanwoong’s voice is melodious, gentle, light and he can’t stop smiling at the expressions of the child with sincere endearment.

“But halmeoni says that fairies are girls, and you are not a girl!” the child retaliates, puzzled.

“How very insightful of you! -Hwanwoong laughs out loud, amused by the uncontainable candidness that Mingi reveals in every observation and question- No, I am most definitely not a girl, and your halmeoni might need a lesson or two about good manners. It is very unpolite to assume that all the exemplars of some creatures only come in one gender. We are way more diverse than that.”

“Swear!” Mingi exclaims, thrilled and captured by the words of the Melusine.

“Of course I swear!” Hwanwoong says, entertained by the boy’s enthusiasm.

“And how old are you?” The boy asks after a short pause.

“I’m 119 years old, how about you?” The creature’s answers are always extremely polite and he clearly isn’t bothered by the presence of the little human, so he gladly satisfies all of his curiosities.

“No way! You can’t be _that_ old.” Mingi lets go of his hold and plants himself where he’s standing, arms crossed and brows furrowed.

“Oh really? Says who?” Hwanwoong, turns around, dumbfounded and slightly stiffened.

“Says me!” He stomps one of his tiny feet on the ground, angrily, which only makes things worse because now the Melusine is laughing out so loud that the whole woods echo with its aery sound.

“Stop kidding me! Just because I am a child it doesn’t mean that I am stupid!” Mingi insists, frustrated, and Hwanwoong quickly recomposes himself after the momentary merriment.

He gracefully sits down on the grass, with his legs crossed, and lifts up Mingi, accommodating him to sit on one of his lean thighs and letting him wiggle a bit, until he’s comfortable enough and ready to listen to him.

“Well, Mingi the Great, I would never lie to you and I will prove that. Does your halmeoni tell you many tales about fairies? -Mingi vigorously nods- Very good. So, you might know that we have some very special powers. -Hwanwoong takes a break and the child nods once more- Well, among all of our powers, there is longevity. This peculiar power means that we live a very, very, very long life. I am not very old for my kin, I’m actually barely an adult.”

As Hwanwoong speaks, the expression in Mingi’s eyes shifts from anger, to distrust, to attentiveness, to understanding, and it doesn’t take him too long to regain trust into the creature’s words.

“You are a human, and you have grown up amongst other humans, so the human life span has been the only measure of evaluation you had until now, but let’s take for example my parents: they are over 400 years old and never been better. It is just the same as if we compare the life span of a butterfly to a human’s one: there is a huge difference, right?” Hwanwoong explains, patiently, making sure that his words are delivered clearly and that the child properly understands what he is saying, occasionally caressing his back and delicately pinching his soft cheeks. “Does it make more sense to you, now?”

“Yes, now I understand! Sorry if I got angry…” Mingi shyly hides his blushing face, ashamed of his short temper.

“It is completely fine, you didn’t offend me and it was a very nice occasion for you to learn something new, wasn’t it? You are a very fast learner, uh?” The Melusine says.

“It was! But I’m afraid I am not a very fast learner… At least that’s not what my teacher says.” The child whispers and pouts at the thought of his teacher scolding him for not remembering the multiplication table correctly… That was the most embarrassing moment of his life, and yet there he is now, being called a fast learner, and maybe he believes Hwanwoong, maybe he really is not as bad as his teacher wants him to believe, maybe he is just not meant to learn like anyone else. Maybe he’s thoroughly different from every other child, from every other human he has ever met, because he has never felt more at home than he does now, sitting on that strange, beautiful creature’s lap as he listens to him speak.

“What’s a teacher?” Hwanwoong asks, dumbfounded.

“Don’t you know?” Mingi asks in return, even more confused. “Well, a teacher is someone who educates children and teaches them many subjects, like history, geography, social studies, Korean, maths…”

“And your teacher doesn’t think you’re a fast learner?” The face of the Melusine is genuinely puzzled and surprised: the more he listens to Mingi and the more he observes how the child seems to catch up right away with everything he tells him, the more he is surprised by his lively intelligence and endless curiosity.

“No, he doesn’t…” The child sighs. “But you don’t think I’m stupid, do you?”

“Mingi -Hwanwoong says with the most welcoming smile Mingi has ever seen- You are the smartest human I’ve ever known.”

The Melusine swallows the tiny body of the child in a comforting embrace and swings back and forward, right and left, until Mingi smiles again and playfully tickles him. As soon as the child’s small hands reach for his armpits, Hwanwoong laughs so loud and so genuinely, making the forests echo once again with the sound, that he sheds a few, silver, glimmering tears, at the sight of which Mingi stops immediately.

“Your tears!” He exclaims, shocked, pointing at Hwanwoong’s eyes.

“Oh, yes, my tears…Let me tell you a little secret, will you?” Hwanwoong dries off his tears with a finger and shows it to Mingi. “See? These ones are tears of joy. Silver tears are tears of joy. Red tears, instead, are tears of anger. Blue tears are tears of sadness. And black tears, the one I wish I will never shed in my whole life, are… -He pauses and gets close to Mingi’s ear- _tears of terror_.” Hwanwoong whispers, after carefully checking the surroundings but without giving away his concern. “You must never be afraid when you come into the woods. You promise this to me, Mingi. You have to swear to me you will never, never, ever be scared or afraid when you walk the paths of the forest.” Hwanwoong’s voice is suddenly firm and serious, which almost frightens Mingi and makes him understand how this must be a very important matter, even though he can’t fully figure out why, so he just wraps his little finger around Hwanwoong’s one and shakes them together.

“Pinky promise!” Mingi says, smiling and grabbing the creature’s face within his hands to plant a kiss at the center of his forehead.

Hwanwoong stares at him, startled, for a few seconds, before giggling and bursting out in a contagious laughter. There is something about the little human that just makes him instinctively like him and wish to protect him… _Even from himself_. And that’s why, after a long afternoon spent playing with Mingi, running around the woods and showing him some of his favorite places, that leave the child in awe, when the first, warm lights of sunset start to shine on them, Hwanwoong’s heart skips a beat and he swiftly takes Mingi’s hand to walk him back as fast as he can to the edge of the forest. Every now and then, when the child gets distracted, Hwanwoong takes quick looks at his body, checking out his limbs as he begins to feel a shiver diffuse from his hands and feet to his arms and legs, up to the spine. When the trees begin to dissipate, he kneels down and grabs Mingi by the shoulders, looking straight into his eyes.

“Thank you so much, Mingi the Great, for spending some time with me. You have no idea of how happy you have made me by visiting me today, but it’s time for you to go home, your family must be waiting for you.” Hwanwoong says as he caresses the kid’s cheek, tenderly.

“Do you think that I could maybe come to see you again anytime soon?” Mingi asks, muttering shyly.

“Of course you can! And remember what you have promised me earlier… Never, ever be afraid when you walk into the woods.”

Mingi nods and the Melusine pats his head and waves goodbye as the child runs towards the path to the village. He had never met a human puppy before, and now he knows why other humans like them so much: there is an innocence within them and a spontaneity, that is rarely found among their species, which make it so easy to love them and to wish to protect them from any evil. Maybe that’s why Hwanwoong made him promise that he will never walk into the wood with a frightened heart. Because, even if he doesn’t know for sure if the child is ever going to come back to visit him, even if he might never see him again, the few hours they have spent together are enough for him to suddenly care and wish for his safety. Hwanwoong waits for a few more seconds, staring at the silhouette of the kid running, then turns around and slowly walks back to his lake. He has to go, even though he doesn’t want to. The pain around his neck is becoming unbearable and he can’t even walk properly because his transformation has begun. When he reaches the shore and lays down on the white pebbles, allowing the calm waves to swallow him underwater, he notices how he has made it just in time. Where there were his legs and arms, now there are white fins, and instead of his handsome face there is now a long, slender fish head. He breathes intensely from his gills.

“Right on time -he thinks- a few more seconds and I’d have been dead.”

* * *

When Mingi arrives home, it’s almost twilight. The pink and purple light of dusk is beginning to embrace his house and to shine its dreamy hue on the surrounding bucolic landscape. The boy smiles and takes a second for himself to look at the beautiful sight.

“This has been the best birthday ever!” He gleefully says, thinking out loud.

He calls his mom as he slams the door open and she runs towards him, picking him up and wrapping her arms around him as she sweetly smooches his cheeks and nuzzles her nose against Mingi’s.

“Oh darling, I was beginning to get worried! How was your afternoon? Did you have fun?” She asks her child, while rubbing away a few dirt spots from his face with her thumb.

“It was awesome! -Mingi screams, throwing his hands in the air and showing off the brightest smile his mother has ever seen on his face- I have had so much fun, mom! I have played with butterflies and hares and… And I have met a fairy!”

“A fairy?” His mom questions with a somehow forced enthusiasm, raising one eyebrow, still carefully trying not to sound too suspicious.

“Yes! A true fairy! And it was a boy fairy, and he said that halmeoni is wrong, because it’s not true that all fairies are girls, and that she was unpolite to say so.” Mingi carefully yet excitedly tells his mom everything he has learnt about fairies from Hwanwoong.

She allows him to speak and ramble about his supposed fairy friend as much as he wants, having him sit at a table next to the stove where she’s cooking dinner, and can’t help but giggle and smile at her child’s creative description of his fantastic afternoon.

Even though she is sure that the ones Mingi is telling her are nothing but a bunch of lies and things he has made up in his mind, she still adores to listen to him and gets easily rubbed off by his fantasy, for it makes her wonder about his future: she thinks about all those things that every mother wonders about every now and then, if he will ever lose that spark of joy in his eyes, if the world is going to be kind towards such a pure child, if he is going to treasure the gift of his imagination through the years.

She doesn’t know the answer to any of her questions, but still, she hopes for the best, and Mingi’s optimistic attitude and happy personality can only make her believe that maybe the cruelty of life won’t crush her child, that he’ll be safe from harm, that in 20, 30, 40 years he will still be as pure and gentle as he is now.

Mingi’s mother gently brushes her hand through her son’s hair, endeared at the sight of the child doodling with his favourite crayons the same winged figure on the paper sheets scattered in front of him.

“We’ll tell halmeoni she was wrong. -She says, winking at him with a knowing look- We’ll tell her off!”

Mingi shakes his little finger with his mom and can’t help but laugh at how serious she looks about the whole matter. If he had told anyone else, even his friends, about his adventure, they would have called him a liar. But she doesn’t. She never does, and it makes Mingi feel like the luckiest child on Earth.

* * *

Hwanwoong doesn’t hope to see Mingi again: he’s very much sure that he’s going to forget about him and about that afternoon very soon, maybe even eventually believe none of the things they have done together has ever happened, so he is surprised to the brink of tears when he sees him again the next week, and the week after, and every week ever since.

Soon enough, Mingi becomes Hwanwoong’s reason to be happy and to look forward for Saturdays to arrive (the human taught him that that’s how his people call that very specific day of the week).

He spends the whole week planning things to do with him, places to take him to, games to play with him, tales of his folks to tell him, songs he wishes to sing to him as he holds him in his arms and lovingly watches him falling asleep. There is something endearing in the way Mingi falls asleep. The weeks, the months, the years go by, and yet he still falls asleep in the same way, Hwanwoong knows the whole steps by heart: first of all, he needs to get comfortable by placing his jointed hands under his right cheek, then his lids get heavy and his lashes flutter for a few seconds before his eyes are eventually able to shut, then, one by one, his facial muscles relax and his lips purse into a tiny, pink, soft circle. The last thing Mingi does before falling asleep is emit a melodious, yet almost inaudible, sigh: that means he’s soundly sleeping.

Sometimes, and this happens more and more with the years going by, he shakes in his sleep, and Hwanwoong always manages to calm him down when this occurs with his caresses and light forehead kisses.

He never says a word to Mingi about it, even if it worries him terribly: the more time passes by, the more Mingi seems to be harboring some kind of secret, and even though he would like to ask him about what seems to be troubling him, Hwanwoong never has the heart to address the issue, so he just sticks to do what he does best, which is offering him every treasure his world has to offer to the human.

He takes him to bathe under the Falls of Sunrise, a waterfall whose warm waters are of a pale, glimmering gold color; he makes him visit the Dream Cave, a grotto hidden in the flank of a mountain whose walls are covered in colorful crystals on which a few sunrays coming from holes in its summit beam; he makes him visit the Wishes Vale, an ever blooming vale where blue grass grows and at the center of which, when pure hearted ones make a wish, a rainbow appears granting them the promise that, whatever they wished for, will come true during their lives.

Hwanwoong entirely involves Mingi in the life of the woods and does his best to make him feel at home, cared for and, what’s most important for him, confident. He wants him to know every inch of his world in order to allow him to venture inside the woods unharmed, and even though he’s very prodigal with showing Mingi the beauties and silver linings of his environment, he becomes quiet and wary every time Mingi brings up the tales he was told about the lingering creatures of evil, belittling them on a par with superstitions and other nonsense.

He doesn’t want Mingi to know, he is terrified that he will never come back to see him if he does, so Hwanwoong eventually just makes up his mind to hold his peace for the sake of Mingi’s serenity and, maybe, of his heart’s happiness.

Seeing Mingi grow, becoming an adolescent and eventually turning into a young adult, hearing his stories from the human world, teaching him everything he knows and wholeheartedly sharing everything he has to give with him does not just come natural for Hwanwoong, but is also his greatest source of pure happiness and endless delight.

The child he wished to protect from any harm becomes a handsome, cheerful, energetic young man.

Hwanwoong loves to play with his wavy, glossy dark hair, tangling his tiny fingers into them and brushing them until they’re all fluffy and soft, and takes a great deal of entertainment in joking about how small Mingi was when they first met.

“How come you had to grow so ridiculously tall?” He often asks, jokingly upset about the human’s considerable height, guilty of making it difficult for one of his size to toy him as he used to when he was a child.

“It was all to prove you wrong for calling me _little_!” Mingi always answers like that, and this answer is usually followed by his deep, loud laughter.

“Oh please, it was one time! _One time_!” Hwanwoong would answer, laughing himself as well.

There are many things they still do like they did when Mingi was a kid, and one of them is joking and playing around.

They still laugh together a lot.

They still talk for hours and lose the sense of time and, of course, they still share a lot of physical contact.

Their affection transpires in each of their gestures, of the tricks they play on each other, of their deep conversations.

Every time they meet and talk about whatever subject, it still feels so meaningful and precious, and even though it is for sure Mingi the one who has spent the relatively longest time with Hwanwoong and who could say he has grown in his company, Hwanwoong, on his behalf, knows for a fact that these have been the most relevant years of his life. He has noticed how much everything has changed ever since that day, more than ten years ago, when little Mingi first walked into the woods: by showing his world to Mingi, he has been the one to learn the most.

There is no turning back from the feeling of pure happiness and joyful fulfillment he gets whenever he sees him arrive, knowing that, every week, he gets the privilege to be next to the human, from the first lights of day to the very last strings of sunset beaming through the trees. He now recognizes his steps, their pace, their weight, the way he always tumbles in the root of a willow right next to his lake.

Hwanwoong is not stupid. There are many things about the human world he doesn’t know or understand, but feelings are something he knows well.

As a Melusine, he’s used to make people fall in love with him by the use of his angelic voice and with the help of his graceful looks and moves. He knows how to induce such a feeling. That’s how he knows what is happening to him is not just mere affection.

The older Mingi grows, the more Hwanwoong senses his feelings towards him shift to something different.

Something more.

Something stronger and more powerful than anything he has ever experienced.

He doesn’t really know how or when it all begun, he can’t trace back the exact moment when he became aware of the fact that he is in love with Mingi.

All he knows is that _he is_ , he knows for sure.

When he holds his hand, it’s not only because he wants to lead him safely on a path that might have some dangerous parts, but it’s mostly because he gets a strange, fuzzy feeling inside that makes him feel all warm and tingling whenever his small, cold fingers interlace with Mingi’s ones.

When he cups his cheek, it’s not just to laugh at the weird faces Mingi makes like he did when he was a child, but it’s because he finds him so ridiculously handsome, even when his face is squished into his small hands, that he can barely resist the instinct that would dictate him to kiss Mingi all over.

When he sees Mingi being troubled, or when he asks him how he has been, or listens to whatever it is that he has to tell him, he does that because everything about him is special. Because he wants to know every little detail in Mingi’s life, and so Hwanwoong begins to feel the same things as Mingi when, for instance, he notices that it’s a sunny day and he knows that the human is extremely happy on sunny days, for reasons he cannot fully understand, or he instinctively smiles when a butterfly rests itself on his finger, because he remembers how shocked and panicked Mingi was the first time it happened to him and didn’t know what to do, too scared to stay still.

Hwanwoong has never felt more stupid.

He’s a Melusine.

Melusines are supposed to make humans fall for them, not the other way around.

He should know what humans are for…

Humans are just for nourishment, and nothing more. That’s how it has always been and how it forever will be. As a matter of fact, the reason why Melusines live such an incredibly long life is because they feed off of humans’ love: if they want to lead a long and healthy life, they must lure and seduce human beings in order to make them lose their minds and obsess over them to the point where the Melusines can do with them as they please and finally give them the Kiss.

The Kiss is not just any kiss: it’s a peculiar procedure through which a Melusine sucks a human’s soul dry and incorporates it into his own, granting themselves a longer lifespan by the assimilation of the residual years left to their victim.

Hwanwoong can’t bring himself to do that to Mingi.

He simply can’t.

Mingi is too precious, too gentle, too kind, and Hwanwoong loves him too much to ever trick him that way, he could never give him the Kiss, not even if his own life were at stake.

But on the other hand, the few Melusines who had fallen in love with humans had to trade their beautiful, peaceful, effortless, long life for a human one, filled with labors and struggles and fatigue and pain of all kinds, that Hwanwoong knows.

What’s worse is, he’s beginning to consider the possibility, even though it would mean giving up all of his world for the sake of loving Mingi, without even knowing if he would love him back.

That’s madness. That’s just plain, utter madness.

But then again, in Hwanwoong’s mind, the line standing between love and madness is beginning to look thinner and thinner.

* * *

When Mingi comes, early on the day of his eighteenth birthday, Hwanwoong is already waiting for him.

His stomach has been twisting and turning for hours now, and when he eventually detects the tall, lean frame of the boy making his way through the trees, he feels a wide, incontrollable, bright smile surge on his face, like the sun at dawn after the longest night.

Hwanwoong runs to him and throws himself into Mingi’s arms, that promptly wrap themselves around his petite figure and strongly lift the fairy up, making him twirl in the air as his iridescent wings flutter with the refreshing morning breeze.

“Happy birthday, Mingi the Great!” Hwanwoong says through the happy giggles and leans in to kiss the tip of Mingi’s nose, making a faint, pinkish blush glow on the boy’s cheeks.

“Thank you so much, Hwanwoong! I’m glad I caught you awake, actually. I know I came quite early…” Mingi begins to say as he scratches the back of his head with his left hand.

“I thought I’d have better have an early morning today. But how about you? Shouldn’t you be resting, at least for today? Not that I’m complaining, it’s just that I thought you might have wanted to sleep more.” Hwanwoong knows for a fact that Mingi despises early mornings.

“Ah, Woongie, you’re looking too deep into things again. I just wanted to see you.” Mingi says, turning his look away from the Melusine and losing himself deep in his thoughts.

Hwanwoong can tell that something is off from the way Mingi tries to hide his face from him and avoids his inquisitive glare at every chance that he gets. Mingi looks stiff and tense, and that’s a first. He’s usually quite relaxed and happy when he comes to see him, and today is supposed to be a _happy_ day…

Hwanwoong can’t help but wonder what is going on with him and feel a grieving wound burn at the height of his chest, leaving him almost breathless.

 _An omen_.

He shivers and grabs Mingi’s hands into his own ones, colder than usual.

“Mingi…” Hwanwoong sighs.

“What?” The boy suddenly twists his head to meet the Melusine’s glance.

There is a sadness within him that ebbs from the brim of his eyes and that only makes Hwanwoong more worried.

“What’s going on?” He gently asks, yet there is an urge in his soft voice, a suffering in the way he whispers that question, that makes the human shed a tear.

“I… I think something’s wrong with me.” Mingi says with a wisp of voice. “I think I don’t belong among my people. I don’t belong among them, I don’t belong here, and at this point I’m too afraid to figure where’s my place”

“Oh darling, no! Why would you say that?” Hwanwoong stops his stride to face Mingi and cup his face in his hands, just like the way he did when he was a child.

“Woongie, I… I think you wouldn’t understand.” The boy’s eyes are now soaked with warm tears that gently yet relentlessly stream along the curves of his face, making their way from his lids to his swollen lips. “They don’t understand me. They don’t know me. I don’t fit within their frames and I can’t shape myself the way they’d want me to. I don’t know how to become like them, I don’t even know if I should try to. All I know is I don’t feel the way everyone else feels. I don’t want what I am supposed to want. I’m lost. I’m lost and I’m torn and my will disobeys me, no matter how hard I try to shackle it, there’s something untamable about my heart’s longings that won’t even allow me to try and become like everybody else…”

Mingi falls to his feet and curls up into the welcoming embrace of Hwanwoong’s arms.

The Melusine lets him cry all he wants against the thin fabric of his garment and doesn’t dare to say a word until he feels the human breathing easier.

“Hwanwoong… What do I do? Where do I stand?” Mingi says through the sobs that are still shaking him.

“Oh, my darling, I can’t tell you that. That much I’m not supposed to know. I have probably already made too big of a damage by oversharing this world with you and now there’s no way I can turn back time and take you back to a place where you’d be happier. If only I hadn’t… If only I had stopped earlier… If only I hadn’t interfered so much with your life… And now I can’t affect your heart’s desires Mingi, some decisions are yours to make, and yours only. I should have known better. I should have known my place.” Hwanwoong answers, and it’s now his time to cry his heart out and allow the clamp at his chest to tear his heart apart, suddenly feeling the weight of all those years spent in such a blissful joy retort itself against not only himself, but his beloved one as well.

“Hwanwoong, how could you not affect my heart’s desires, if my heart’s desire is you?” Roars Mingi, giving up to the unbearable need to let out and vocalize his feelings at long last. “How am I supposed to belong in a world where there’s no room for you? How can I accept to live with the awareness that love exists, but is not mine to freely experience? How can I even come to terms with the burden of an existence that is doomed to be unfulfilled? How can it be worth for me to be alive when there’s not a glimpse of hope ahead of me?”

Mingi finally looks at the Melusine, exuding an indescribable range of emotions, finally gaping for air with his mouth agape.

Hwanwoong doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, he’s just as lost and powerless as Mingi while he clearly sees the atrocious spectacle of his whole world crumbling in front of his eyes with no chance to save even the smallest bit of it. He’s devastated.

He knew that time would have come for them.

What he didn’t expect was for it to be so soon and so sudden.

Hwanwoong is wrecked and desperate, and God knows desperate people do desperate things.

And so does he.

He holds Mingi’s cheeks one more time.

Not the way he used to do when he was a child.

His heart races and his body is shaking under the most terrifying fear he’s ever felt.

He could turn back from what he is about to do, but he just doesn’t want to.

So he pulls Mingi’s face towards his own, and slowly leans in without ever looking away from the human’s eyes, and doesn’t stop until their lips, wet with tears and burning with passion, touch each other.

Mingi’s lips are soft. Hwanwoong can feel their tension loosen up against his own and melt into the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.

He takes his time to lick away the tears from the plump mouth.

He feels Mingi’s mouth hunger for him, as he bites and sucks and pushes further and more passionately and more desperately against his lips, before he retaliates with the same drive.

God knows desperate people do desperate things.

And God knows they’re desperate now.


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are creatures, in the woods.
> 
> There are creatures, murmuring, watching, crawling.
> 
> There are creatures and they live in the shadows casted by trees, in their hollow trunks, in the abandoned dens of foxes and badgers and squirrels.
> 
> They prey on fear and despair and loneliness, they feed themselves over the misery in the last tears of their victims, unendingly thirsting for more humans to lure into their wicked paths, on which humans walk only to meet their fate.
> 
> Except that, this time, it’s not just a human they will feast off of. It’s a human, hurt out of love, and a Melusine.
> 
> A precious creature.
> 
> A child of the woods, just like them, who is not supposed to feel afraid, made of pure light and beauty, a perfect exemplar of a seductive, enticing, deceiving, ancient species, devoted to the Moon Goddess. The dark crawlers slither onto him rejoicing at his anguish and elated at the delightful fragrance of Hwanwoong’s despair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My darlings, first of all let me thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.  
> To you, who have been patient enough to wait for this conclusive chapter, thank you.  
> To you, who have taken your time to leave a comment, thank you.  
> To you, who have left me a kudo or bookmarked this story, thank you.  
> To all of you who have read this and loved this small piece of, nonetheless, intense work, thank you.  
> I hope to have done well and to not have failed any of your expectations.
> 
> Please give this story, which is very heartfelt and dear to me, lots of love by commenting, bookmarking it or leaving kudos.  
> You have no idea of how much this means to me <3
> 
> As always, you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/persefoneregina) if you'd like to follow me and be updated on my future works and projects!

# Haunted Bliss

As they kiss, Mingi can taste Hwanwoong’s tears. His blue tears keep running down and Mingi meticulously licks them away when sucking in the Melusine’s lips into his own, like he could stand a chance to take in all of his sadness, to rip it out of Hwanwoong’s chest and absorb it in his own as an utmost act of love.

He can’t do that, but for once in his life he wishes he was superhuman after all.

He wishes he had any form of power over emotions that aren’t his own, because Hwanwoong is way too precious and delicate for all of that suffering.

Pain was never meant for him to feel.

After all, that’s what human nature is for, at least in his experience: humans are supposed to know pain at a very early age in life, to consciously recognise it, to own it up, to take responsibility for it, to endure it until the very end, until that pain has burned down everything standing on its way, every happy memory, any pleasant sensation, any soothing and safe harbour, until it reaches to the human core and claims it as its own, leaving a desert land of emptiness and nothingness at its back.

Hwanwoong is not supposed to suffer.

Hwanwoong is not supposed to know what heartbreak feels like.

Hwanwoong is not supposed to be hurt.

And for being the ultimate cause to all of the heartache Hwanwoong must be going through, Mingi can’t help but feel a form of guilt, of shame, of grief as heavy as an anvil pushing on his chest.

He has been tainting such a precious creature’s life with his bare presence for so many years and yet, now that he realises how far they’ve crossed the line, he can’t let him go away nor bring himself to leave.

Mingi knows he could never have foreseen things ending up like that, but this awareness doesn’t make things easier in the slightest way. 

He knows how Hwanwoong’s tears are for him and it’s excruciating. It’s a suffering that goes far beyond everything he has ever experienced in his life. 

Every time he feels one falling along his cheeks, he makes sure to kiss it away. 

To lick it up. 

To suck it in. 

To bite it off.

But he can’t stop, even when Hwanwoong’s tears stop falling.

He can’t stop kissing, and licking, and sucking, and biting his heavenly, soft, wet, cold skin, possessed by a growing drive that calls for him and makes him want more.

Whatever it is, Mingi is sure that Hwanwoong must be feeling it too.

There’s no need to ask him.

He can sense it in his hands grabbing onto his shoulders and in his nails clawing his flesh under the clothes, in his body getting closer and in his teeth sinking on his mouth.

There’s no need to ask him.

He can sense it in the way words become as needless as their clothes.

He can sense it in the way the fire burning inside of him can be only sated by Hwanwoong’s cold body brushing against his searing hot one.

By the way he is desperate to  _ feel _ more. To feel _ him _ more. To feel him  _ whole _ .

Mingi tries to stand against the instinct that is taking over him, but there’s just no use.

He surrenders to the touch of Hwanwoong’s hands gently brushing his hair and caressing his forehead, to the sound of his kisses constellating his neck and sprinkling his chest, to the elegance of his body glowing in the warm, golden light of noon.

Mingi needs to touch him before he loses his mind to the crippling fear of being hallucinating.

Of it being unreal.

Of it being a dream. A very vivid one, but still a dream.

He has to tighten his grip around Hwanwoong’s waist or he’ll lose his mind in fear of him slipping away, he wraps him in his arms, tenderly, careful not to hurt Hwanwoong, yet driven by the desperate urge to bring his chest against his own and to feel Hwanwoong’s heart beating just as his one, craving for the silent confirmation given by those vibrations that they’re really there and then and that whatever it is that they’re doing, they’re doing it together out of love.

Mingi looks for Hwanwoong’s lips once more as his hands run down his back, pulling him closer, for every millimeter standing between them feels like torture. Whenever they pull apart to look into each other’s eyes, Mingi feels out of breath, and even though he could easily surrender and lose himself to those clear, mesmerizing eyes, into that intense, sensual glare of his, he rushes for Hwanwoong’s mouth again and pulls him back onto his body in a tight hug. That’s how much he needs to have the Melusine near. That’s how much he’s scared to lose him.

They get inebriated by the thirst to have each other more, getting reciprocally high on every single sound, giggle, sigh, breath and moan coming out of their mouths, in an endless spiral of addiction where there’s just no turning back from the point they’ve reached and no chance to stop until they’ll wholly have each other.

Without even knowing how, Mingi’s wrists are being pinned on the soft grass by Hwanwoong’s delicate hands and he can feel how he’s just as eager and longing for relief as he is. Mingi can’t explain it to himself, but there’s a fire and a void in his loins that ceaselessly demands to be sated, and the closer Hwanwoong gets, the more they touch, the more relentless it gets, to the point where desire becomes so overwhelmingly untamable to be on the verge of turning into pain.

“Hwanwoong, I…” Mingi tries to speak, eventually ending up taking his time to cup the Melusine’s face into his hands and to stare into his eyes. They’re shining. There’s a glimpse of ferality that Mingi has never seen before, nonetheless he’s anything but scared. He’s enticed. There’s ferality and sweetness at the same time, there’s that ever glowing gentle look with which Hwanwoong loves to bless him and that instantly makes Mingi feel safe.

Hwanwoong leans down on him only to press his index on Mingi’s wet, swollen lips, and smiles just like he’s always smiled to him: with infinite tenderness.

“Hush love. Don’t be scared. It’s just us. It’s always been us.” whispers Hwanwoong before kissing him once more. Delicately. Softly. Placing one kiss after the other on his lips, until the human smiles back at him.

It’s them.

It’s been them all those years.

Mingi relaxes, finally, giving up all of his defenses, all of his worries and all of his sorrow to allow the moment of bliss to take over in its full grace.

Hwanwoong is gentle, that he has always known, nonetheless he never got the grasp of just how much his gentleness could become irresistible.

He’s mindful and caring as he slides over Mingi’s groin, letting him slowly glide through surprised, pleasant sighs inside of him and relish in the breathtaking feeling of receiving his body and giving him his own. He lets instinct guide his gestures as he’s overwhelmed by the relief he finally encounters in taking Hwanwoong, slowly at first, then chasing every inch of rapturing ecstasy with increasingly eager thrusts, to which Hwanwoong complies seconding Mingi’s pace with his body’s wavelike movements and reassuring him by constantly smiling at him and caressing his blushing, heated cheeks.

Mingi touches every inch of Hwanwoong’s body, sinking his fingers in the flesh of his thighs and hips, brushing with his fingertips along the perfect curve of his spine, interlocking fingers with him, as his senses feast on the multitude of sensations he’s experiencing all at once.

Heartbeat.

Heat.

Hunger.

Drive.

Want.

Need.

Anticipation.

Fulfillment.

Contentment.

Love.

Love.

His mind goes blank as he feels like drowning under the primal wave of heat and wetness that envelops his body and leaves him out of breath, choking on the muffled words and moans dying in his throat as he gasps for air and spaces out, annihilated and ecstatic, only able to hear the sound of his heartbeat throbbing in his chest.

Mingi lays his arms wide opened at the sides of his body and Hwanwoong curls down on his chest, drawing circles on his skin with the very tip of his nails.

The human eventually wraps his arms around the Melusine and holds him close, completely absorbed in the perfect intimacy of the moment, cradled by the sound of the breeze through the leaves and of their breaths choiring together, hugged by the sun shining through the treetops and by the crinkling, soft grass.

It’s all so familiar, Mingi thinks, playing with a golden lock of Hwanwoong’s hair, it’s all so peaceful. He doesn’t want to go back to reality, where even the mere thought of such an union would be madness, to say the least. He doesn’t want to be bothered with sensibility, rationality and all that nonsense. He doesn’t want to accept as reality anything that feels any less real than what he feels for Hwanwoong.

After a few minutes, or maybe hours, Hwanwoong pushes himself up and delicately taps Mingi’s nose tip with his fingers, giggling at his blissful expression.

“Do you really mean what you said before?” Mingi asks, abruptly breaking the silence with his deep voice still slurry with appeasement, as he lazily opens up his eyes to look directly at Hwanwoong. He needs to see his face as he answers. He needs it to be the truth.

“Uh?” The Melusine hums looking at him with dumbfounded eyes, stopping his hands’ motions for a while and crawling up to sit next to Mingi as he senses the subject requiring his undivided attention.

Mingi accomodates himself to sit next to him, legs crossed, and rushes to hold his hand, implicitly asking for reassurance, for a peak of hope to hold onto as discomfort clings back onto the back of his mind.

“I need to know. Do you really mean that it’s just you and me? That it will be enough for me not to fear the odds?” Mingi’s eyes twinkle with both hope and fear as he speaks, with the same naivité that he had in his voice when he was just a child. Hwanwoong lingers in his silence for a while, smiling melancholically with his glare lost in the bucolic landscape in front of him.

“I really wish it were that simple, love. I really wish that being together and loving each other were enough for us to have a chance. I wish I could craft a magic strong enough for us to have a chance for happiness in this life or conjure a portal to a dimension where we could escape the world to a dimension where the laws of our kins wouldn’t mean a thing, where we’d just be us and there’d be no impediment whatsoever to our bond. I would be lying if I said that love will be enough. Love is never enough. You know all the fairytales your halmeoni told you when you were a kid? Love doesn’t work that way. Love doesn’t dissolve everything that stands in its way by exerting some kind of arcane sorcery. Love is blindness if one is allows it to take over, it’s a beautiful servant but a dangerous master, and some of its consequences are catastrophical.”

Hwanwoong looks away from Mingi. He can’t stand his heartbroken glare. It’s all too much for him to take.

He feels despicable and mean.

He feels guilty, selfish, and can’t bring himself to face Mingi’s disappointment.

He knows that he actually could do something.

Give up, once and forever, on his nature, turn his back to his family, his people, his home, be banished from his homeland, suffer the loss of his wings, of his magic, of his gills, and become human in all and for all. 

Begin to age at a speed he’s not used to. 

Feel a physical pain with an ungodly intensity for his parameters. 

Learn to live in a world he doesn’t belong to and start anew, forever stranded. 

Disembodied. 

Unbelonging. 

And do it all for love and love alone.

Hwanwoong curses at himself as he digs his nails so deep into the skin on his arms that they bleed.

He’s disgusted by himself for being such a calculative, weak-willed, ungrateful creature. 

He’s so sick at the loops his mind is running into that it makes him sick how his own nature is betraying him by even making him doubt whether all the suffering he would encounter could be worthy of a life spent next to Mingi.

Mingi. The person he dared to call “love” as he betrayed him by lying to his face and hiding him that, as a matter of fact, he  _ does _ know a magic strong enough for them to have a chance for happiness.

Hwanwoong hates himself so much for being afraid to age, to fall ill, to die, to rot.

He leaves Mingi’s hand and walks towards the edge of the lake where he was born. 

The cold water laps his feet and sends a shiver all along his spine up to his head, as he pathetically hides away his face from Mingi.

The lake and the woods are all he has ever known in his incredibly long life.

His home.

His world.

In one of the novels of Mingi’s halmeoni he knows that, probably, the hero wouldn’t even think twice and just rush into his beloved one’s arms, selflessly giving all up without a second thought, but Hwanwoong is no hero.

He’s a Melusine. 

A fairy. 

A fragile creature of the woods, gifted with an anthropomorphic look during the daylight hours and cursed to become a fish as soon as the light fades and night overtakes on the enchanted forest. 

A creature who is supposed to prey on humans, not to fall in love with them, to properly survive.

With a heart torn between the call of his true nature and his heart’s demandings, Hwanwoong feels his eyes getting wet all over again.

How could he leave for good and learn to live anew into a dimension that doesn’t belong to him and where he doesn’t belong either?

But then again, how could he leave Mingi? How could he send him away, bid him farewell and spend all the countless years left to him without the light of life and fire of his heart?

Without Mingi’s smile and without his deep, intense, raspy voice, without his laughter, without his touch, without his speeches, without his silly stories, without his hand wrapped around his one, without his kisses…

The sudden realization of how lifeless an existence without Mingi would be for him stabs Hwanwoong like a dagger and cracks something deep down the darkest corners of his soul, making him fall to his knees on the shore and allowing an unknown form of light to shine within him.

Why did he lie?

Why was he scared?

What’s there to fear if he has Mingi by his side?

As soon as he makes up his mind, Hwanwoong quickly turns around.

He wants to run to Mingi and throw himself into his arms and kiss him all over, to comfort him and to tell him that, as a matter of fact, there is a way for them to be together.

That he’s ready to give him his all. 

That he’s ready to give him his life.

But, to his horror, when Hwanwoong turns around, Mingi is nowhere to be found.

Hwanwoong freezes and chokes on his breath, feeling a heavy shadow being casted on his heart. Where could he have gone? Where could he be? Could he be in danger? Could he be harmed?

Could he be  _ afraid _ ?

_ Fear. _

The very thought of Mingi being alone in the woods and afraid makes Hwanwoong’s blood curdle in his veins. Suddenly, the Melusine blacks out and starts to run, as fast as he can, calling Mingi’s name throughout every path and every den, through the branches and the ferns, as he sifts through all the places he could have shown him, thinking that Mingi would have surely gone to a safe place to think and find some peace.

_ He must be so hurt _ , Hwanwoong thinks, _ I must have hurt him so much _ .

_ Oh, Goddess, what did I do? _

After hours spent looking for Mingi far and wide, Hwanwoong stops to catch his breath, on the brink of surrendering to the unbearable truth: Mingi is gone. He must have found his way out of the forest and have made return to his world, to his family, to his home.

It would be only wise if he’d do the same.

But, of all the things that Hwanwoong is, wise is definitely the latter anyone would think of.

He stays bent, supporting himself with the palm of his hands on his knees, as he inhales deeply. There’s dirt all over his feet and splatters of mud and blood on his calves, his beautiful gown is torn and stained with grass and clay. He notices how some briers bushes have scratched his legs and some thorns got stuck in his flesh, but still the pain doesn’t hit him. All he can feel is a searing ache tearing apart his heart and Hwanwoong is well aware it is not going to stop, not until he finds Mingi, so he gets back on his feet and runs again.

There’s an anguish growing on him by the second which Hwanwoong finds extremely hard to suppress, clinging on the back of his mind like a sinister omen and clouding his thoughts.

For as much as he tries to be rational and to stay lucid, it’s almost unbeatable, but Hwanwoong has to give his all and try to handle his emotions: he cannot be afraid in the woods. 

_ There are creatures, in the woods, creatures that would feast over him _ .

Melusines, after all, are way more precious preys than humans, their emotions are so intense and yet so rare to stimulate that, when felt with a certain powerfulness, they turn them into living targets for the dark crawlers. 

Hwanwoong wouldn’t stand a chance against them. He’s not a fighter. He’s not a warring spirit. And his very life is at stake right now, that’s why he has to try his best in the struggle of keeping his composure, otherwise there will be no chance of survival, not for him, not for Mingi, and for as much as he could very well accept it to be his end, he can’t afford the risk of Mingi’s safety being endangered.

So he runs.

He runs.

And he runs.

His lungs burn, but he cannot stop.

His feet are flayed, but he doesn’t care.

He keeps on following every single path that his mind suggests him to go, until he trips into a root. Hwanwoong hears a distinct cracking sound coming from his ankle as he falls on the ground, and then the stabbing pain reaches to his heart, blinding him for a few seconds. He squints his eyes in ache, suffocating a muffled wail, angered at the fallacy of his own body.

When he opens them again, though, what he finds in front of himself is even more terrifying: a few centimetres away from him, Mingi’s body is laying on the ground, disheveled, sweaty and dirty. His eyes are closed, his mouth slightly opened. 

“No… No, love, please, no…” Whispers the Melusine through the sobs lightly shaking his body, as he tries to get back up, but falls into the dirt once more.

Hwanwoong crawls closer to him, gropingly touching Mingi’s hands and face with his palms, but when he gets close enough to Mingi’s head, to his horror, he erroneously places his hand on something wet, slightly viscous, disturbingly warm.

Hwanwoong feels his bowel turn upside down and his heart clench as he raises his trembling hand to see what it is.

He swallows a shot of acid that had risen back to his throat, feeling nauseous.

Hwanwoong stares at his hand with shock and disbelief as the thick liquid drips down his wrist and forearm, in slow, hypnotising streaks tinting his white skin.

A piercing scream echoes through the woods, a feral, beastly, deadly scream, which Hwanwoong doesn’t even know he could emit.

Blood.

He put his hand in a puddle of blood.

Of Mingi’s blood.

“Mingi… Mingi, love, can you hear me?”

Hwanwoong tries to approximate his hand to Mingi’s face but can’t bring himself to touch him with his dirty hand. He convulsively brushes it on his own chest, on his gown, trying to clean it up, before he grabs the human’s face and lifts it a little higher from the soil.

Without noticing, Hwanwoong ends us being completely soaked and tarnished in muck and blood. He looks like anything but the celestial creature Mingi saw for the first time at the lake.

Curled up on Mingi’s body, Hwanwoong suddenly feels him faintly breathing.

_ Alive _ .

He’s alive.

“I’m here, love… Worry not. I am here.” Hwanwoong whispers in his ear, as he kisses his forehead and caresses his hair. Mingi whimpers at his touch and his eyelids flutter, as he seems to regain consciousness. Hwanwoong notices him trying to move something and his eyes are instantly drawn to look at how he tries to grab the air with his hand, so he slides his fingers through the human’s ones and locks them together. He has never felt that grateful.

But then again, the Melusine is stroke by a sudden agnition: the sun is about to set.

He should go back to the lake and take Mingi with himself, because Hwanwoong’s magic is a water type of charm, but he cannot walk, let alone carry him as well.

Mingi is still bleeding from the wound to his head, and even though the Melusine knows very few things about the human world, he is aware that he won’t have much time left.

That is it.

The acknowledgement of the end and of his guilt.

They’re doomed, and they are doomed because of his stupid hesitation.

If only he had been brave enough to stand right next to Mingi and to tell him the truth, if only he hadn’t faltered, if only he hadn’t been betrayed by his own deceiving nature and tricked into believing that love would not have been enough, when love was all that truly mattered in the first place…

Hwanwoong keeps caressing Mingi’s face as he accepts his fate.

He lays down next to him, face to face, close enough to feel his breath, weaker and weaker, while trying to only focus on his beautiful features, on the pretty curve of his eyes, on the perfect lines of his nose, on the plumpness of his lips, once so pink, on the sharpness of his jaw.

Mingi is perfect.

He has always been perfect.

The most perfect, precious creature to ever walk the world, or at least to step into  _ his _ world.

Hwanwoong watches as the searing light of sunset paints the human’s golden skin in hues of bronze and scarlet. 

It’s almost time.

“I’m so sorry, love. I could have made it right, but I failed you. I’m sorry if I made you feel abandoned or betrayed. You truly are Mingi the Great. Your name goes by the size of your heart, unlike mine...I could have given you love and ended up giving you torment. I deserted you at your frailest.”

Hwanwoong feels boiling tears coming out of his eyes. They itch and burn his skin as they drip down the bridge of his nose and along his cheekbones, carving their way on his skin and watering the soil. His words are broken by heaved sighs as he progressively feels his body shake and struggle to assume his nocturnal form.

“I… I can’t do anything about it, now… But I can promise this to you… A life together, or no life at all.”

There is another second for Hwanwoong to bask in the lovable sight of Mingi, then all the world fades under the thick curtain casted on his eyes by the black tears he’s shedding.

_ Fear. _

Fear is something a water nymph is not familiar with.

Melusines lead a life of happiness and playful seduction along the compelling beauty of the bodies of water that are home to their kin, and Hwanwoong’s life was supposed to make no exception to the natural paradigm of the superior order of things.

Who would have known that such a small thing as a human puppy would have, one day, walked into his life and straight up subverted it, making him question all of his certainties to the point of accepting to die by his side.

Who would have known that the single memory of Mingi’s smile would have comforted him so much, to the point of making this utmost sacrifice acceptable.

In the depth of the woods, gasping for air, with his body agonizing in seizures, Hwanwoong believes he is glad to go.

He’s not scared of his fate, as a matter of fact.

But when the thought of Mingi’s life fading away from his body with every breath crosses his mind, terror takes over,  for even though Hwanwoong is very much ready to meet his fate, the thought of Mingi dying is to say the least unbearable for him.

The Melusine curls up on himself and begins to cry, blinded by the burning tears, soaked in blood, possessed by an unknown dread that tears his soul and rips his heart to pieces, pulling it apart strand by strand with merciless savagery, and yet the thing that hurts the most is the thought that all suffering could have been spared if only…

Hwanwoong can’t complete the thought.

_ There are creatures, in the woods. _

_ There are creatures, murmuring, watching, crawling. _

_ There are creatures and they live in the shadows casted by trees, in their hollow trunks, in the abandoned dens of foxes and badgers and squirrels. _

_ They prey on fear and despair and loneliness, they feed themselves over the misery in the last tears of their victims, unendingly thirsting for more humans to lure into their wicked paths, on which humans walk only to meet their fate _ .

Except that, this time, it’s not just a human they will feast off of. It’s a human, hurt out of love, and a Melusine.

A precious creature.

A child of the woods, just like them, who is not supposed to feel afraid, made of pure light and beauty, a perfect exemplar of a seductive, enticing, deceiving, ancient species, devoted to the Moon Goddess. The dark crawlers slither onto him rejoicing at his anguish and elated at the delightful fragrance of Hwanwoong’s despair.

“Goddess… Sunmi… I beg you -Hwanwoong prayed, his face warped by the pain, with a thread of voice- ...Have mercy…”

Hwanwoong’s words echo in the woods, just like his laughter once used to do.

Just like his choke, that comes right after, when he feels his breath being taken away by a dark crawler’s claws penetrating the softness of his skin.

* * *

On a full moon night, the lake shines just like a silver mirror, glowing with an enchanted silver light that gives to the landscape an even more charming appearance. There’s swarms of blue fireflies floating around the water’s surface and iridescent fireflies twirling around in ascending spirals, only to dive down once more with fluttering wings and find rest on water lily leaves. Her feet shiver when they meet the dewy, crispy grass.

She loves to walk the woods at night, when, like her, the environment is at its peak beauty and she can calmly contemplate her creatures in perfect harmony.

Every living creature around the lake belongs to her, just like every creature living in the rivers, in the seas, in the oceans. It doesn’t matter whether big or small: all the forms of life that belong to the water, belong to her and owe her unconditional honors and obedience.

Just like her creatures are tied to her by a deed of allegiance, though, she is inextricably tied to them by an oath of protection and shelter, an oath as old as the world itself, as life and light, as water and night.

And a Goddess, a mother, a patroness of such regal, divine nature, doesn’t ever desert her children, least of all the ones belonging to her delect bloodline, the most ancient ones, not to mention the most devoted and pious of all. Melusines and their sisters Mermaids are kins she moulded to her image and likeness, to gift the world with unparalleled beauty and to revel in the grace of her kingdom.

In return, she swore she would have never been deaf to a lament of one of her children, and if humans or magical creatures may happen to desert their given word, she, as a Goddess, is held to abide by higher laws, to be a bulwark of moral perfection and to remember her creatures, by showing her love and magnanimity in times of need, what is the model of rectitude they must follow and strive to.

As she walks along the lake, drawing a perfect circle with her steps around it and making flowers blossom wherever she lays her feet, Sumni gently sings her song. It’s a chant in a language unknown and inaccessible to human, a language of magic. As soon as she completes the circle, the whole perimeter she has tracked beams in an otherworldly, blinding light and a wave of energy propels itself with indicible power throughout the woods, shaking the tree trunks like a shockwave of earthquake. In a second, she disappears, embraced by the bright streaks of pastel light. The darkness of the night falls back on the whole forest, and Sunmi is nowhere to be found.

When she arrives on the scene of the massacre, the show displayed in front of her eyes is gruesome. 

She rushes towards the two bloodied bodies laying on the ground, without a care for her precious, star encrusted gown, made of clouds and streaks of aurora borealis. 

Sunmi kneels down and gently places the Melusine head on top of her legs, cradling it in her lap and cleaning it with her fingers with motherly love.

“My child, my beautiful, precious, sweet child… What in the world has happened to you?” The Goddess softly says, her voice filled with sorrow.

The Melusine’s wings have been broken and his flesh torn. Sumni presses her hands all over the wounds, trying to mend them with her inaudible chants, yet her magic doesn’t seem to be able to flow in his blood. She sighs as a sense of grief strangles her heart.

Her child was not alone, though, as she can notice: he has been holding onto the hand of the one that looks like… a human? Sunmi takes a better look at the other figure laying beside Hwanwoong: that is, indeed, a human. What would a human do in the depth of the woods in the middle of the night, though, is beyond her understanding, or at least so it is for that while, since she is about to find out. She presses her fingers on both of Hwanwoong’s temples and her eyes roll back. In that moment, she drains all of his last thoughts and memories.

Finally, Sumni’s questions are answered, as she walks past all the life of Hwanwoong and looks at him meeting the human as a child. She tenderly smiles at the sight of her own baby taking care so well and so gently of that little human. She learns that his name is Mingi and that she should be thankful to him for making her Hwanwoong so happy. For making his life much brighter and joyful. For teaching him the meaning of love, loyalty, selflessness and sacrifice much better, apparently, than she did. Sunmi shakes her head as the whole, heartbreaking romance between her child and the human plays before her eyes, leaving her moved, pained and dreary.

_Nature has unbreakable laws_.

One of the most sacred ones is that life has a certain span, and that its strings have been rescinded, there is no turning back from the everlasting nothingness of the dead. Eternal peace awaits those who cross the border and walk the path that leads to the Land of the Unbeing, but that’s of no comfort to her.

A mother’s grief in unparalleled to any other possible for of grief, and a Goddess’ grief is beyond devastating. Sunmi places her hand on top of the two, still locked together, of Hwanwoong and Mingi, and her cries are so pitiful and heartbreaking that not even the dark crawlers dare looking at what is happening, hiding in shame at the miserable lament of the Goddess, that shakes the land she’s sitting on and brings together all the constellations, to flock the small portion of pitch black sky over the forest and to mourn the loss of a sacred life, such as that of the Melusine, with their mother. Teardrops fill her bright, blue eyes and fall on the cursed land where Hwanwoong and Mingi lay.

_Nature has unbreakable laws, that is very much true_.

But it is just as true that nature was crafted by the Gods, who stand beyond them as absolute authorities to whose judgment the whole world must defer to, and Sunmi is more than willing to avenge the empious murder of her child and his cherished one. She tries and tries to work her magic, though their bodies don’t seem to be willing to react. Hence, she viciously bites her hand, until her teeth tear her divine skin and her blood and tears both drip all over their bodies. Blood magic is an ancient, arcane, almost forgotten magic, unaccessible to anyone besides her, but its peerless power knows no boundaries and there is no such thing, not even death, strong enough to put up a form of resistance against its raw, coercive strength. 

The whole forest is filled once more by overflowing waves of light as Sunmi’s chants lift themselves higher and higher in the sky, focusing all the moonbeams on the two boys and performing her ritual as meticulously and carefully as she can, floating in the air with all of her grace and magnificence, as the galaxies detach themselves from the celestial vault to wrap themselves around her to offer her their power and buoyant specs of eternity whirl in circles, in descending spirals, imposing their blessings to Mingi and Hwanwoong by drizzling all over their lifeless figures. 

Then, the nothingness. In a bolt, Sunmi and her celestial children disappear, leaving the world at peace and blessed by her limitless love after re-establishing its balance.

And the night, at long last, falls.

But there is no such thing as a night without a dawn, and so, as the moon gently sets and parts from the lovers with a benevolent smile, they are soon greeted by the gentle caresses of the morning sun shining on their limbs with their pale, golden hue. 

There are creatures, in the woods.

There are creatures, in the woods, but the miracle of the Goddess has made them silent and staring in awe at the wondrous prodigy that derived from something as natural as two creatures wishing for nothing more than to love one another.

As the sun sets higher and its rays get warmer, Mingi squints his eyes and instinctively rubs them, before opening them up and finding himself, to his great marvel, alive and well and dressed with a robe of gold as shining and luminous as the iridescent one he was used to see Hwanwoong wearing.

Hwanwoong. 

His very first thought goes to him and to the fuzzy memory of his voice speaking to him while his conscience faded out of his body. He turns around and, surprisingly, he sees him peacefully laying by his side. Mingi brushes his hand through Hwanwoong’s hair and leans down to kiss him. 

He’s not cold. 

He doesn’t get the usual feeling of coolness and wetness he had whenever he would touch him. 

Mingi frowns. Something must have happened, for sure, but he doesn’t know what, exactly, and yet it is of absolutely no importance because Hwanwoong is there, next to him, meaning that, in the end, he chose him. He really did keep his promise.

_A life together or no life at all_.

At the soft touch of Mingi’s lips, Hwanwoong eventually wakes up as well, more confused than ever. He instantly touches his ribcage, right where he remembers being stabbed by the dark crawler’s claw, and feels the distinctive mark of a scar on his skin. 

It was not a dream. 

But if it hasn’t been a dream, then, _why_ is he alive? 

He looks at Mingi, sitting in front of him, as beautiful as ever, and throws his arms around his neck, feeling Mingi’s ones welcoming him in a sweet, strong embrace.

Hwanwoong nuzzles his face in the hollow of his neck and deeply inhales his soothing, familiar, smell, which he has never been happier to feel, but when he runs his hands down Mingi’s back, he feels something he has never felt before. Something he knows for a fact that has never been there before. So he pulls himself out of his arms to take a better look at him.

He observes how now Mingi has gills under his jawline and wings on his back. Just like he does. 

He’s not warm anymore. 

He’s not a human anymore. 

He’s not dying anymore.

He’s there, in his world, in his home, in the one that was supposed to be the place where he belonged all along: by his side.

Not as a guest or a stranger, but as a peer, as his kin, as a moonchild, as a Melusine, as the only persone he was, is and will ever be able to love, to spend, as promised, a life together.

_A life, together, or no life at all_.


End file.
